Old coaches never die; in fact, they keep their clout

Sporting News, The, Dec 15, 1997 by Tom Dienhart, Mike Huguenin

Texas and Arkansas haven't been true players on the national scene for a good many years. And neither Frank Broyles nor Darrell Royal has been a coach since 1976.

But that doesn't mean they still don't have a big say in what goes on in the football programs at Arkansas and Texas, respectively.

Obviously, Broyles, the longtime athletic director at Arkansas, will have a say in picking the new Razorbacks coach. And make no mistake: While there is a search committee in place, Broyles' word is final. Arkansas' top three targets are Miami's Butch Davis (a former Razorbacks player), Mississippi's Tommy Tuberville and Boise State's Houston Nutt (also a former Hog). The school also planned to talk with Southern Mississippi's Jeff Bower.

While Davis is the No. 1 choice, Nutt might end up with the job for a number of reasons. For one thing, Nutt has made no bones about how much he wants to coach Arkansas. For another, Davis and Tuberville have Arkansas ties, but buying either out of his contract plus paying off the rest of former coach Danny Ford's contract could get a bit pricey.

One job negative is having to work with Broyles, an ultra-successful coach who never quite has realized he isn't in charge on the field any more. Broyles is in charge of a superb athletic program, but he still watches football game film and can be a meddler in the program.

At Texas, word is that Royal's support of Mack Brown was a big reason the North Carolina coach was hired to replace John Mackovic. Royal was a Brown supporter all the way and lobbied hard for others to become Brown backers. One reason Northwestern Gary Barnett did not get the job is that he was perceived by some as too aloof, too arrogant, too non-Texas -- in short, too Mackovician. There also are rumors Barnett was offered the job but that the makeup of his proposed staff didn't meet with the approval of some of the big-money folks and the talks fell apart.

Brown is leaving a basketball school for a school-and a state, for that matter -- that is football crazy. For the most part, he was in a pressure-free environment at UNC. His job will be pressure-free at Texas, too, as long as he wins at least 10 games a season and competes for the national title, beats Texas A&M and Oklahoma on an annual basis, graduates about 70 percent of his players, wears jeans and boots and hobnobs with the big-money alums who want to talk recruiting ("I'm telling you, that big ol' boy over there in Beaumont is a stud; we gonna get him?") and tells Aggies jokes.

At times, Brown was overly paranoid about what was written about him and the UNC program. Let us be the first to tell him the media in Texas will be far harsher than anything he encountered in North Carolina.

Brown will be well-compensated for his efforts. His base salary will be about $750,000. That's the base salary, which means all the ancillary income -- the shoe contracts, the radio/TV contracts, the bonuses, etc. -- should boost the package into the $1.2 million range. That makes Brown -- a guy who never has won even a conference title -- the second highest-paid coach in the nation, behind Florida's Steve Spurrier.

Grambling's gamble

College football lost a big piece of its fabric when Eddie Robinson retired from Grambling. There's no question the program has fallen into disrepair, having posted three consecutive losing seasons for the first time since Coach Rob took over in 1941, and the task of making the G-Men a force again falls to former NFL star Doug Williams.

Some question whether Williams is the right man for the job. Williams is a Grambling grad who lobbied hard for the job -- and some say he helped push Robinson out the door. Regardless, Williams' credentials are dubious. He has coached one season of college ball, guiding Division II Morehouse College (Ga.) to a 3-8 mark in 1997. Perhaps his biggest asset is that, hey, he's former NFL quarterback Doug Williams.

That should prove beneficial as he hits the recruiting trail in an effort to replenish a talent pool that had grown thin under Robinson's watch. It's also important that Williams surround himself with good people, quieting critics who questioned the play-calling by Robinson's staff. Many thought Robinson, who spread himself thin thanks to an inability to say "no" to requests, gave too much responsibility to his coaches.

While the William hire surprised few, some believe it might not have been the best choice. Baylor running backs coach Lee Fobbs was a popular candidate. Like Williams, Fobbs is a Grambling grad, but he has much more coaching experience, having been in the college ranks since 1988. He also has worked at Northeast Louisiana, Tulane, LSU, Southern Miss and Minnesota. Another choice was LSU defensive ends coach Jerry Baldwin, who has been a college assistant since 1983. Like Fobbs, he interviewed for the Grambling post. But he's a Mississippi Valley State grad who probably will take over whenever Larry Dorsey leaves the Delta Devils.